How to Measure Your Marketing Results – In Just 7 Minutes with Andy Janaitis

Resources/Links:

• Want more FREE tips on how to authentically grow out your business? Click here: PPCpitbulls.com

Summary

Have you been investing on cheap data that you just end up not getting the results you want? Do you want to maximize your marketing by learning how to measure your marketing results?

Marketing isn’t all about investing in different ads and strategies, it’s also about gathering the data and understanding it– which platform gets you the most views, what time is the best time to post, and so on.

Andy Janaitis is the founder and owner of PPC Pitbulls, a digital marketing agency focused on driving measurable results online.

Find out how Andy stopped following trends and started adding value into your brand through the perfect marketing strategy and measuring your marketing results.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:21 – Andy’s ideal client: My company, we’re PPC Pitbulls, we work primarily with E-commerce brands that are looking to grow more sales online.
• 02:08 – The problem he helps solve: The problem really is that gap. Once somebody gets the page, oftentimes, people think about all these tips and tricks and you know, Google ads, Facebook ads, Instagram, using influencers, all these different nice ways to get people to the page, which is really important, and really something we should be thinking about.
• 03:15 – The symptoms of the problem: The number one sign we see, you know, get somebody in, we’re talking to them. And the first thing I ask is, “hey, what’s your cost per acquisition?” Or “If you’re selling a product, what’s your return on ad spend?”
• 04:25 – Clients’ common mistakes before consulting Andy: The first and foremost, first thing we see is people running paid traffic. This is running Google ads, Facebook ads, anything like that without tracking conversions. So, one, tracking what’s happening and two, sending that data back to whether it be Google or Facebook
• 06:17 – Andy’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): The number one thing, if you don’t have it already, get Google Analytics installed on your site. It’s a free service. It’s the best basic tracking tool to understand what events are happening.
• 06:51 – Andy’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Want more FREE tips on how to authentically grow out your business? Click here: PPCpitbulls.com
• 07:27 – Q: Do I need to upgrade to GA 4? A: Yes. You do need to get it updated. Universal Analytics, the older version, will be retired on July 23, so that’s not going to work anymore.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Get Google Analytics installed on your site. It's a free service. It's the best basic tracking tool to understand what events are happening.” -Andy Janaitis Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Greetings, everyone and a very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. I’m Tom Poland joined today by Andy Janaitis. Andy, good day. Sir, a very warm welcome. Where are you hanging out?

Andy Janaitis 00:21
I’m in Ellicott City. It’s a suburb just outside of Baltimore, Maryland.

Tom Poland 00:26
Baltimore. Alright, so what’s the big sports team there that everyone supports?

Andy Janaitis 00:31
We’ve got the Ravens and the Orioles. The Ravens are football and Orioles are baseball. Myself, I’m from the Northeast originally, though, so I’ve got other teams. I have kind of displaced fan syndrome down here.

Tom Poland 00:42
Split loyalties. So, if the two teams are fighting each other, one of them’s going to win. So that’s a plus. Okay, folks. Andy is the founder and owner of PPC Pitbulls, a digital marketing agency focused on driving measurable results online. And, folks, that’s often the thing that people miss. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. And so, if you can’t manage it, then you can’t respond and change and get increasing revenue. So, the measurement is so critical. And that brings us to the subject of this interview, which is, “How to Measure Your Marketing Results”. Andy, our seven minutes is going to start now, sir. Question number one, who’s your ideal client?

Andy Janaitis 01:21
Awesome. Yeah. So, our bread and butter, my company, we’re PPC Pitbulls, we work primarily with E-commerce brands that are looking to grow more sales online. But through that work, as you mentioned, the biggest thing is making sure that we’re tracking customer behavior once they hit the site. So, to that end, we also work with a number of companies that are either looking for sales, looking for lead gen, getting form fills, that type of thing. And then we also work in a white label capacity for agencies trying to help these people. So ultimately, anybody running digital marketing, and especially those who may be a little confused as to what their results are, and what’s happening once they’re getting people onto the page.

Tom Poland 02:02
Okay, thank you for that. We’ve got six and a quarter minutes left. How would you define the problem that you solve for your clients?

Andy Janaitis 02:08
So, the problem really is that gap. Once somebody gets the page, oftentimes, people think about all these tips and tricks and you know, Google ads, Facebook ads, Instagram, using influencers, all these different nice ways to get people to the page, which is really important, and really something we should be thinking about. But it’s kind of all for naught. If you’re sending people a page, and then you don’t know what’s happening there, there’s no way to tell, is it really profitable? What’s working? What are people doing once they get there? And are they filling out the form that you want them to fill out or buying the product you want them to buy?

Tom Poland 02:40
So, would it be fair to say it’s, you know, people throwing a lot of money, perhaps at ads and pay per click, but not really knowing what the buyer behavior is, if they get to the page, once they get to the page?

Andy Janaitis 02:51
That’s really the core issue, just kind of living in the dark, not knowing what is working? And ultimately, what’s profitable.

Tom Poland 02:58
You’re getting visibility for that. Thank you for that. So, question three and we’ve got five minutes left, what would you say are the typical symptoms? Now, when I’m talking about symptoms here, this is of someone, before they become a client of yours, what’s going on with their advertising or their business, that would kind of give them a heads up to go, “I should be speaking with Andy”?

Andy Janaitis 03:15
Definitely. So, the number one sign we see, you know, get somebody in, we’re talking to them. And the first thing I ask is, “hey, what’s your cost per acquisition?” Or “If you’re selling a product, what’s your return on ad spend?” You know, “What’s the revenue you’re driving for every ad dollar?” And if somebody doesn’t know the answer to that, that’s the first red flag, the first symptom for me. So oftentimes, people will come and say, “Hey, you know, I see different numbers in Shopify, and HubSpot and Google Analytics, and I don’t know what to trust. I don’t know, you know, what’s right. It’s something mobile counting.” That’s another one of the big symptoms. And then I think more broadly, we often hear people say, “Hey, I’ve run Facebook, or Instagram or Google ads in the past, and it just never really worked for me”, but they can’t really articulate why that was, or how they knew it wasn’t working for them, or really, what KPI would have indicated that it was working for them. So yeah, those are some of the main symptoms we’re seeing.

Tom Poland 04:09
Thank you for that. So, we’ve got people spending money on advertising. They’re doing the right thing. They’re getting out to the marketplace and not being passive. Four minutes left, what would you say are some of the major mistakes that people make with advertising before they find your solution?

Andy Janaitis 04:25
Definitely. So, the first and foremost, first thing we see is people running paid traffic. This is running Google ads, Facebook ads, anything like that without tracking conversions. So, one, tracking what’s happening and two, sending that data back to whether it be Google or Facebook. The issues there when you’re, one, not be able to manage it, as you mentioned, not able to see, you know, what’s working, and what’s not, but then even bigger than that, all of these platforms run on automated bidding these days. So, if you’re not feeding that data back in, you’re not going to be getting any better and getting better results. Another common mistake is focusing on things like Cost Per Click, CPC or Click Through Rate, CTR, as opposed to cost per acquisition or ROAs that are, you know, really getting to the core of what you’re trying to get done, and what you’re trying to get towards. You might-

Tom Poland 05:13
Some of the bottom line is, are we making money here? But if we’re focusing on cost per click, it hasn’t answered the whole question, I suppose. Is that right?

Andy Janaitis 05:22
Exactly, you might be getting some really, really cheap data or really, really cheap traffic to your site. But if nobody’s buying, then, hey, it’s not helpful that you got a bunch of cheap clicks.

Tom Poland 05:32
Well, what has been helpful, as you mentioned, buyer behavior. That was one thing I picked up. You mentioned, feeding the data back to the platforms. And now you’ve mentioned how important it is to find out whether this thing is working at a big picture level, not just a matter of the small picture level. Thank you for that. Anything else you want to add to the mistakes list without depressing people before we move on?

Andy Janaitis 05:57
I think the other big thing, just following a bunch of trends jumping on, “Hey, I know I need to be running this channel” and running it but not really measuring results and understanding why you’re doing it.

Tom Poland 06:05
Chasing another squirrel. Thank you for that. Let’s flip it! We’ve got two minutes left. Three questions to go. One valuable free action. What I’m after here, just a top tip, that’s not going to solve the whole problem, but it might start something like-

Andy Janaitis 06:17
The number one thing, if you don’t have it already, get Google Analytics installed on your site. It’s a free service. It’s the best basic tracking tool to understand what events are happening. It’s going to give you pageviews, that type of thing. And if you do have that, use Tag Manager. It’s another free Google tool that you can install and start tracking button clicks, form fills, that type of thing.

Tom Poland 06:40
Google Analytics, thank you. Let’s go to question six, a valuable free resource. Give people a URL where they can go to and find out more about what you do, and maybe pick up some free cool stuff as well.

Andy Janaitis 06:51
Definitely. So, I drive everybody to the homepage, that’s PPCpitbulls.com, and there you’ll find a number of free resources. We actually have a digital marketing maturity roadmap. That’s a quick guide that you can download and it will help you tell if you’re running paid ads. And you can also book a free strategy session with me where we’ll go over some of your needs and kind of figure out what your best next step is.

Tom Poland 07:13
Great idea. So, folks, that’s PPC, Pay Per Click, PPCpitbulls, as in the dog, plural, dot com, PPCpitbulls.com. Thank you for that, sir. 40 seconds left. Question seven, what’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t?

Andy Janaitis 07:27
So, one thing in this area that we’re hearing a lot of, people are saying, “Hey, do I need to upgrade to GA 4?” So that’s the newest version of Google Analytics. Maybe you’ve been running analytics for a while. Google’s making a lot of noise about this new version. The answer is yes. You do need to get it updated. Universal Analytics, the older version, will be retired on July 23, so that’s not going to work anymore. July 23 2023, I should say. So, year over year data won’t be available come July 2023, if you’re not installing it now. So that would be my big tip. Get that going!

Tom Poland 07:59
So much value in that interview. Thank you, Andy. Folks, you want to listen to this one again, because there are some absolute gold nuggets in there! Andy Janaitis, thank you so much for your time.

Andy Janaitis 08:08
Awesome. Thank you, Tom.

Tom Poland 08:10
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.